My Yom Kippur was beautiful. Services were filled with singing and dancing, sermons with powerful messages and breaks – well, no, there wasn’t one! I never thought I could sit in services from 7:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. But there I was, in shul all day, praying along with an entranced congregation.

At about 4 p.m., as we were finishing Musaf and about to dive into Minchah, I took a short break and walked downstairs. There, in the social hall, the synagogue was hosting a free, all-English, no-RSVP required, one-hour Yom Kippur service that was open to the public. The room was packed.

The Hebrew Institute of Riverdale (HIR) in New York City, affectionately known as the Bayit of Riverdale, sees its role as being a shul for the entire community – dues-paying members and all local residents.

In the days leading up to Yom Kippur, members were asked to take home flyers for the service to put up in local shops or their apartment buildings. Rabbi Avi Weiss insisted that everyone would be welcome and each “regular” shul attendee had a responsibility to invite those who might not otherwise attend a service. Sure enough, everyone came: young and old, with wheelchairs and walkers, with kippot or not, dressed in their Yom Tov finest or in jeans. Nearly 500 people crowded into the social hall.

As the traditional service began an uplifting Minchah upstairs that, at times, could be heard through the ceiling, the free service began its own form of prayer. Each person was greeted and made to feel at home as they entered the room. Men and women sat together and each person was handed a machzor. The service was simple, consisting of songs and stories, meditations and prayers in English. Rabbi Weiss used personal anecdotes to connect with the crowd and drew on personal connections with particular congregants to teach specific prayers.

The shaliach tzibur taught and led Unetane Tokef using Leonard Cohen’s song Who by Fire, the Shema was sung in both English and Hebrew, and the hour-long service concluded with Yizkor.

The service sets the Hebrew Institute apart from any other synagogues I have attended. All too often, especially on the High Holidays, access to prayer is limited to dues-paying members with tickets and/or those fluent in Jewish ritual. Entering a synagogue where liturgy and ritual are foreign can be an intimidating and off-putting experience – even to seasoned shul-goers – and the cost of a High Holiday ticket limits attendance at all our synagogues.

The free service seeks to lower the bar for engagement and open the synagogue to the entire community. The flyer advertising the program made this clear: a free, all-English, one-hour Yom Kipur service with no RSVP necessary. The explanations given throughout the service, as well as the language of prayer, the teaching of songs and the use of personal meditation, made the service accessible to everyone in the room.

Even as Minchah continued upstairs, the entire synagogue staff was in the free service – three rabbis, rabbinic interns, the cantor, the youth director and the director of the Hebrew school. All were welcoming the attendees and encouraging the service along. The common mission of engagement was clear. At the end, Rabbi Weiss invited everyone to the final service of the day, Neilah, upstairs in the main sanctuary, insisting that there’s always room for new faces.

While the free service may not be an appropriate model for all congregations, the statement it makes about a synagogue’s role is critical for the success of congregations in our contemporary world. Shuls cannot view themselves solely as membership-driven organizations, but rather must see their mission as serving the spiritual needs of the entire Jewish community, with the support of their memberships.